"Chapter 1: The End of Humanity's Era

Morning sunlight streamed through the window, warming my face as I shielded my eyes from the glare with one hand. After one last check of the code still blinking on the LCD monitor, I efficiently packed everything up and transmitted it to my colleagues.

Lin Yue—that’s my name. Fresh out of university, I’d landed a job at a midsize company thanks to decent skills and some family connections. The pay wasn’t spectacular, but I could leave work behind the moment my tasks were done, freely carving out the rest of my time. That flexibility was precisely why I loved this gig.

Yawning after yet another all-nighter, I chugged the full bottle of milk perched on my desk. ""Another year gone. Tomorrow’s my day off—time to unwind. For now, hibernation mode. Mission accomplished after back-to-back late nights… Zzzzz.""

For the past two months, I’d become inexplicably obsessed with an ancient secret manual I’d stumbled upon in my hometown. Strange things had begun happening unnoticed. Before I could even shut down my computer, a surge of eerie, oppressive energy flooded my mind from deep within, dragging me into the deepest sleep.

Logically, I knew the manual’s content was laughable nonsense—maybe offering some minor health perks at best. But my childhood-sharpened instincts screamed otherwise. Like a drowning man clawing for life, survival drive had fueled my frantic practice of these so-called Daoist techniques. If work hadn’t drowned me lately, I might’ve visited a psychiatrist.

As I slumped over the desk, snoring, my body unconsciously radiated a gloomy aura of death. It slowly enveloped me, shielding even the sunlight—a scene ripped straight from YY novels where cultivators meditate.

Scientifically, none of this made sense. But perhaps the entire world had already shifted beneath our notice. Unseen hands twisted the laws of physics and common sense, like when dinosaurs fell and humans rose. How would reality reshape itself now?

Time bled unnoticed through December 31, 2009. Complacency, it seemed, was contagious. Unaware of the cataclysm brewing, I—like countless others—remained a cog in society’s machine, believing my life was set. Yet harsh reality descended upon our bustling world in a form no one foresaw.

No one could’ve imagined everything changing in a single day: December 31, 2009. Human civilization shattered like glass, leaving survivors in a wasteland of death and despair. If history were still recorded, this day would mark humanity’s end.

Crack… crack… Faint fractures echoed through tectonic layers worldwide, growing louder. In homes and streets, people felt the violent tremors. Colossal fissures tore through concrete as the crust convulsed, rending roads like paper.

Amid the upheaval, skyscrapers and malls groaned as structures tore apart. Before panic could settle, enormous shadows blotted the sky. Horror-struck eyes saw only collapsing floors—buildings buckling under seismic fury, coldly devouring lives with thunderous crashes.

""What’s happening? That freak blizzard two years ago was bad enough—not this!"" Earthquake survivors crumpled onto rubble-strewn ground, wailing over lost loved ones while copper-tinged air thickened around them. Then the clear sky darkened. Stinging sleet fell, instantly freezing into ice sheets where it landed.

""Damn it! How did none of you catch this?"" On the ruined Pentagon grounds, America’s president cursed his incompetent team while accepting a raincoat. In that instant, a furred black claw punched through his chest. His once-gentle secretary, mutated into a grotesque beast by an unknown force, tore into his corpse with jagged teeth.

Trained agents snapped into action as the creature lunged for its next victim. Gunfire ripped through it—panic driving them to shred the body into pulp like scenes from blockbuster nightmares.

""Bio-weapon leak?"" Guards cautiously approached the mangled beast, shaken far beyond movie-screen terror. None noticed blood-red eyes glowing among them as comrades twitched, bodies swelling grotesquely.

""No!"" Newly mutated beasts tore through their former teammates. Blood and limbs flew as distrust exploded. Friends aimed rifles at anyone looking ""off,"" firing instantly. Human ugliness laid bare.

Yet even elite skills and gear proved useless against the carnage. Not just the capital—the entire world drowned in primal fear. This was the apocalypse: raw, unflinching.

In a blood-splattered command center, satellite feeds showed chaos swirling planet-wide. Raging weather. Relentless slaughter. Human order and natural law obliterated. Amid the pandemonium, five monoliths of corrupt energy surfaced—gates from hell itself.

Savage beast force. Sinister demon force. Annihilating death force. Terrifying divine force. And an unfathomable human force. These undetectable powers ripped through the dying world like plagues, warping flora and fauna into humanity’s executioners.

Yet as with the eye of a hurricane, the gates offered twisted salvation. Expanding fully, they cloaked their domains in radiant shields, incinerating incompatible mutants.

Pure energy flowed from these shields, nurturing survivors. A few humans absorbed the power, slipping into transformative slumber. Upon awakening, they’d cease being human—yet remain luckier than those left screaming outside.

Satellites showed five cocoon-like shields pulsing with serene light as global storms stabilized. Outside these domes, disparate forces clashed before settling into deadly equilibrium. Ruined cities swarmed with predatory mutations: zombies, demons, and abominations born of volatile energies.

Most beasts were mindless but devastatingly destructive. Their reign began mere hours after the gates opened—barely one sleep cycle for an overworked programmer. Unaware of the hellscape, I kept snoozing under collapsed rubble, spared by solid construction.

Meanwhile, the gloom swirling around my body acted like oxygen-starved water seizing free-floating energy. Growing more tangible, the murky aura pulsed fiercely as my healthy tan faded to corpse-white.

That shield blocked apocalyptic energies from shredding my body—saving my life, but not correctly. In humanity’s twilight, I’d evolved. No longer an ordinary man dreaming of quiet days, I’d become a creature engineered to survive this nightmare. Less human now, more monster."